The Journal Teaching StatisticsAuthor(s): Gerald GoodallSource: Mathematics in School, Vol. 32, No. 5 (Nov., 2003), pp. 21-22Published by: The Mathematical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30215624 .

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The journal Teaching Statistics

by Gerald Goodall

I am very pleased to write about the journal Teaching Statistics in this issue of Mathematics in School.

I suppose I should first introduce myself as the Editor. You will see that my address at the end of the article is the Royal Statistical Society, where I am Director of Education. But I should explain that Teaching Statistics is not a journal of the Royal Statistical Society; it has its own independent existence, supported by the Teaching Statistics Trust, and it is merely coincidence that I happen to work for the Society.

A glance at the Authors' Notes at the back of Mathematics in School and at our own Notes for Contributors shows that there is much in common. We are both journals about teaching aimed at teachers. But there is no sense in which we are in competition with each other. Rather, our roles are complementary.

Teaching Statistics, as its name suggests, is explicitly about the teaching of statistics. It is a truly international journal - last time we did a count, we had subscribers in 45 countries all round the world - and is indeed the only international journal aimed specifically at the teaching of statistics. It is a serious, established and long-term player in its field.

Its aims, as given in the current version of its Notes for Contributors, are as follows. It is 'aimed at teachers of students aged up to 19 who use statistics in their work. The emphasis is on teaching the subject and addressing problems which arise in the classroom. The journal seeks to support not only specialist statistics teachers but also those in other disciplines, such as economics, biology and geography, who make widespread use of statistics in their teaching. Teaching Statistics seeks to inform, enlighten, stimulate, correct, entertain and encourage'. It is published by Blackwells on behalf of the Teaching Statistics Trust, three times each year - normally February, May and September.

We say we aim at 'teachers of students aged up to 19' and we wish strongly to emphasize the orientation to school teaching. Certainly it is true that some of our articles are submitted by university academics, but these are articles focused on teaching. Also they are focused on teaching at the lower end of university courses, where the material being explored might well be found at the upper end of some school courses. From time to time articles dealing with the teaching of material at a higher level, say final-year undergraduate, are submitted, and we always reject these on the basis that the material is too advanced unless we believe there is a real connection with school-level teaching. If we did not do this, we are afraid that the school-teaching focus would be swamped out. What we like to have, of course, is

plenty of appropriate articles by university academics and plenty of appropriate articles by school-teachers too. I will return to this later.

Another important quotation from our Notes for Contributors is 'Contributions should be light and readable. Formal mathematics should be kept to a minimum'. Again, something very similar is said in Mathematics in School. We mean it very sincerely. Our articles are meant to be about the real actual practice of teaching the subject, and to be immediately useful and stimulating.

The Typical Article

Well, really there isn't one. Except that a typical article will be something to do with the teaching of statistics, and is likely to be an account of something the author has tried in the classroom (or sometimes by taking the class outside it) and which seems to have worked.

Thus there have been articles about various forms of projects. This is of course a very important area just now with the introduction of compulsory data handling projects in the GCSE. We had a scene-setting article about this from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority last year, and look forward to carrying several articles about what it has actually meant in practice. There have also been articles about data collection exercises carried out 'in the field', in some sense. Data analysis is of course important too; many of our articles about this have come under a 'Computing Corner' heading, where we explore how to get good results out of spreadsheets and other software. Other articles give, even yet, new slants on lotteries and on distilling statistical points from television game shows - like them or loathe them (I'm in the latter category), they do present all sorts of possibilities for statistical analysis. We've also had articles giving introductions to comparatively advanced topics that are designed to be suitable for students at earlier stages.

As an illustration, and in the hope of whetting your appetite3 the autumn 2002 issue contained seven articles: on voting methods, an introduction to the ideas of hypothesis testing, assessment using real data from CensusAtSchool, cleaning dirty data in Excel, a probability model for golf putting, classifying data displays found in popular software, and an example on the addition property of covariance. Other material included three book reviews, a letter to the editor and the regular 'News and Notes' section. Moving on to the spring 2003 issue, I shall maintain an air of mystery by referring merely to the titles of some of the articles: 'The gourmet guide to statistics'; 'Confident in a kiss'; 'A walker runs through the syllabus'; 'The same but different'; 'King Kong, storks and birth rates'. How can you resist?

Mathematics in School, November 2003 The MA web site www.m-a.org.uk 21

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It's easy to go beyond what I have stated and see not only summaries of current articles but also many complete articles from previous years.

Go to the journal's web site

http://science.ntu.ac.uk/rsscse/ts

Please note that this does not start with 'www'. This is part of the web site of the Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education at Nottingham Trent University, which acts as the administrative home of the journal. As well as general information about the journal, it carries lists of current contents. And it also has compendia of the best articles from many previous volumes. A very large number of past articles can be downloaded directly in PDF form. Please use this facility. We've provided it so as to give a service to the statistical teaching community, and we want it to be used.

Try it and See

Naturally we also hope that seeing some past articles will make you want to see present and future ones by subscribing to the journal. A 2004 subscription for an individual in the UK is a mere 024, and you can subscribe on-line on Blackwells web site

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com

(there is a direct link to this from the journal's web site).

Even better - why not write for us? Tell us about something you have tried in the teaching of statistics and which seems to have worked, be it in primary school, secondary school or wherever, and whether with statistics specialists or with pupils using statistics in some other subject. Share your ideas and skills with colleagues in teaching world-wide.

And if you have any more general queries about the journal, please contact me directly (e-mail preferred, please).

Keywords: Teaching; Statistics teaching.

Author Gerald Goodall, Editor 'Teaching Statistics', The Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London EC1Y 8LX. e-mail: g.goodall@rss.org.uk

Salendars for 2004

by Frank Tapson

Yes, it's that time of year again! Time to prepare for the coming year in many ways, and not least in making a decorative and useful calendar. While, at the same time, learning just a little something about some three- dimensional shapes. So, here are four of them, together with a pointer to many more.

The Dodecahedron is probably the most well known of all of them as well as being, apparently, the most popular. It seems to have been first introduced to the world in the 1970's by Martin Gardner but made its first appearance in these columns in November 1984, and this is now its thirteenth outing.

The Hexagonal Prism is another popular one possibly because it can be made up without the need for any glue and yet is still a very robust model.

The Oblique Pyramid is new to these columns. Its shape and sizes mean that it is one-third of a cube, so it is worthwhile getting three of them together and showing just how easily they do form a cube. From that it is a short step to demonstrating the well-known formula for the volume of a pyramid. Of course it is not a proof of the general case!

The Pentagonal Antiprism is another newcomer. Antiprisms are difficult to explain no matter how much you wave your hands around, but once seen the idea is very clean,

so have one around whenever prisms are on display. A hexagonal antiprism has appeared here before.

These four calendars, together with many more, can all be downloaded from the Web. Some other shapes to be found there, with calendars printed on, are: cone, tetrahedron, prisms, octahedron, rhomboid, pyramid, other dodecahedrons, and some calendars which require only to be coloured in. Something suitable for everyone. And there is a comprehensive set of notes on the models, together with ideas for using and extending the work. Just go to

www.cleavebooks.com click on Calendar Models

and make your selection from there.

Author Frank Tapson. e-mail: f.tapson@ex.ac.uk

22 Mathematics in School, November 2003 The MA web site www.m-a.org.uk

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